I lit a thin green candle

I remember when my half-sister came to stay, seven years older than me and full of energy, like a whirlwind dropping into the quiet rhythm of our house. She was a force of nature—smoking cigars, drinking wine, laughing loudly, and swearing with abandon as she worked through the fingering on her guitar. One of the songs she sang was Leonard Cohen’s One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, and as her voice filled the room with its melancholy notes, I couldn’t help but think of that thin green candle Cohen lights to provoke jealousy. Was she lighting her own candle that visit? Was she jealous of Dad’s new life, of us—his children now living with him, including me? Or was she trying to reignite something from her own childhood, something of the bond they once had before I came into the picture?

Even at nine, I sensed something layered in her performance. She sang with rawness, her voice searching for the right notes, and sometimes missing them, but never losing her spark. When she fumbled, she swore and laughed it off, making the moment hers, full of personality and fun. It was as if she were defying the mournful seriousness of the song, beating Leonard Cohen at his own game by turning his sad, self-pitying lament into a celebration of her own defiant, messy vitality.

She had a way of commanding the room, and her connection with Dad was undeniable, though strange to me. She wasn’t around enough for their bond to make sense in my world, but it was clear they shared something deep. They had a life together before I existed—a history that I could only imagine. Watching them together, I saw her meet him not as a daughter needing approval but as an equal, someone who could match his humour, his energy, and his wit. It was disarming to witness, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I would ever reach that kind of ease with him.

For all her bravado, though, I sensed there was something beneath it—something in her performance that felt like it carried a message, perhaps a plea. Was she trying to impress him? Trying to show him what she’d made of herself, despite the challenges she faced living with her mother and stepfather? And yet, her triumph wasn’t in perfection. It was in the sheer vitality of her presence, in the way she made her mistakes part of the performance, transforming them into something uniquely hers.

If this was her thin green candle, then it worked. She lit the room with it, and I think she got what she came for—my father’s attention, love, and admiration. Watching her, I saw the courage it took to be so vulnerable and so unapologetically herself. It stayed with me, even as I realised that her relationship with him—her ability to meet him so casually, so freely—was something I might never quite share.

Further thoughts on Leonard Cohen's "One of us can't be wrong".

Apparently, it may have been written about his love for Nico from The Velvet Underground. Not one of his better-known songs. Perhaps because of the awful wailing at the end.

Cohen’s use of the thin green candle is odd—the idea that lighting such a thing could inspire jealousy—is part of what makes the song compelling. For me it teeters on the absurd, suggesting the Cohen’s desperation or delusion. The green candle, far from being an obvious symbol of desire or power, seems frail and peculiar, evoking something fragile, ineffective, or even off-putting.

Perhaps it reflects the narrator's awareness, on some level, of the futility or grotesqueness of his efforts. The object itself is not inherently romantic or seductive; it’s small, fragile, and almost pathetic—like the narrator’s attempt to control or manipulate emotion.